Journal 14: November 24th

Months ago, my mom told me about a giant trash mass in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I think she described the size as "double the size of Texas". For this week's blog I chose to research this subject further, & I am completely astounded by the information I have found.





Firstly, the trash mass is not double the size of Texas, but double the size of the continental United States. It is held in place by currents, but can move. When it travels close to the shore in areas such as Hawaii, some of the trash is expelled onto the shore.



Because the trash mass has never come into contact with the shore, it remained unreported/undiscovered for a long time. Eighty percent of the garbage is plastic, and the mass of the debris has doubled in the past five years.

The most pressing problem with this situation is that it has already integrated into our food chain. Another issue is that because the sea is no one country's property, it is likely that noone will take responsibility for the problem. This is another environmental issue that needs to be tackled collaboratively.

A documentary entitled "Garbage Island" was made this year:
http://www.takepart.com/tag/great-pacific-garbage-patch/

Journal 13: November 22nd

I met a guy at a Burning Man event this fall who is working in the environmental science field. He had a display on algae fuel and a small demostration area with graphics describing the process and the advantages of algae fuel as opposed to petroleum. As I walked away from the booth, I wondered why algae fuel was not getting more press, and why the American government has not yet subsidized an industry that could potentially solve two of our biggest problems: global warming and foreign oil dependence.

The facts on algae fuel are almost too good to be true:

• An acre of algae can produce 50 times more oil than an acre of soy.
• Algae facilities can suck significant amounts of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere; the fumes coming out of utility smokestacks can be piped into algae growing facilities.
• Algae uses sunlight to produce lipids (oil).
• Biodegradable.

One of the problems in algae production is finding cheap CO2. But experiments have shown that CO2 from smokestacks works well with algae. If we placed algae fields next to all smokestacks, pollution manufacturing would be green and clean energy produced.

The United States began the Aquatic Species Program in 1978. The programs first goals were to create hyrdrogen, but in the 80s the focus turned towards biodiesel production. In 1996 the program was cut because of lack of funding. GreenFuel is a private American corporation that has started where the Aquatic Species Program left off. The company's future looks bright, and at the moment it has enough investors to continue to grow without government assistance.

Journal 12: November 17th

I've been thinking a lot about the desalination of sea water, & how this process could be used to both balance the rising sea level and provide water to areas that cannot naturally supply the region's demand by natural means. This would be perfect for the Bay Area and California overall because of the water shortages we discussed in class. Lake and water table water will not last us forever.

I found an article that outlines the potential problems triggered by rising sea level that could happen locally: http://www.sfbayjv.org/news_summaries/2007/january/Sea_level_a_rising_threat.html

Sea level rose 7 inches in the last 100 years, and is expected to rise anywhere from 4 to 36 inches by 2010.

This website has an interactive map that shows how the region will be affected by various increases in sea level:
http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/san-francisco.shtml
When I lived in a high-rise I often imagined the valley filled with water, & the buildings a secret undersea Atlantis that a future post-Apocalyptic society would discover centuries later.
Hey, maybe the Drawbridge ghost boats wil sail again.

Journal 11: November 10th

I decided to do some more research on caverns this week. I got an idea that maybe they could be used as bomb shelters, or some kind of protection from the elements in the future if the surface of the earth were to be unsafe. Like nature's safe havens.

Then I came across this article: http://users.resist.ca/~kirstena/pageunderground.html





This is fascinating. I knew that caves and trenches were used in war, but the idea of entire underground cities that could house 20,000 is beyond what I could have ever imagined. The article also touches on the history of caves and how they are intertwined with ancient religious history.


In the last few years I've gotten interested in urban exploration, but I've never been in a cave. I know that some people on a UrbEx forum I am a part of have explored the Catacombs. The picture on the left is from someone's personal trip down into these tunnels. There are secret entrances that allow explorers access to the tunnels without going on a guided tour.



All over the world, people have found secret underground tunnels and documented their adventured on the forum: uer.ca.

Another part of the first article on caverns caught my attention:




"As a kid, I used to explore caves in the Santa Clarita Valley with my dad. Kids actually got a specific ailment from going into caves in that area, due to breathing a mold inside the caves. In the 1994 Northridge earthquake, people began to come down with "Valley Fever," which had symptoms very close to those the kids in the caves got. The theory was that the intense shaking of the earth, shook the molds and dusts out of the caves and land, and people inhaled it. And photographs from the air, of the moment of the quake, show dust clouds rising like steam, out of the land."





Maybe this is the cause of the widespread sickness caused after the Peru earthquakes that I talked about in my previous post.

Journal 10: November 3rd

I have never been afraid of earthquakes. When I was a kid I thought they were the most exciting thing ever, and you could probably even say I looked forward to them because the ones I had experienced had never threatened my safety.

About two or three weeks before the Alum Rock earthquake of October 2007, I suddenty became terrified of earthquakes. I would note to friends that it was "earthquake weather," I stressed over what I could do to be safe on the seventh floor of an ancient concrete building, and I woke up almost every night in between 3 and 4 A.M. unable to sleep because I was so scared that an earthquake was coming.

About a week before the earthquake, I walked past a machine selling the Mercury news with a headline that read: "TECTONIC TIME BOMB." This scared me even more. I was a wreck; I dreamed about earthquakes almost every night. I feel sorry for my boyfriend at the time, because by this point I was waking him up at all hours to be reassured that I was safe, no matter how irrational it was to assume that he held some magical earthquake-blocking power.

When the earthquake hit, I was relieved. My fear of earthquakes was gone again. I promised everyone I would tell them when the next earthquake was coming. So far, nothing. I'll let you know.



Anyway, my new earthquake fear is not the earthquakes themselves, but the weird shit happening before major quakes in other parts of the world. Have you seen this?

http://current.com/items/89008559/phenomenon_before_earthquake.htm

http://forgetomori.com/2007/science/earthlights-on-perus-earthquake/

Shit, now I'll be afraid of UFOs, sickness-inducing-meteors, & earthquakes happening simultaneously.